An antique letter has most likely come a long way and therefore may not be completely smooth and clean, so we need to slightly crumple the sheet of paper.
Also, one of the characteristic features of an old letter is yellowed paper, so we will start with coloring the sheet we have. In order to give the paper a yellow-brown tint, place it in tea leaves or coffee.
The intensity of the coloring will depend both on the length of time the paper remains in the dye and on its concentration. For example, a sheet of paper dipped into a thick coffee slurry will turn color in just one or two minutes and its color will be saturated, while paper dipped in a weak tea brew will only turn slightly yellow.
The painted sheet of paper should be removed from the container in which it was located and air dried.
After the paper has dried a little, you need to iron the sheet with an iron. This will smooth out the paper and make it easier to write on.
Now you can move on to further aging the paper: tear the sheet a little, drip wax on it, or even leave prints from a mug of hot coffee on it.
You can age the paper even more by slightly burning the edges of the sheet with a lighter. At the same time, great care should be taken: you need to burn the paper near a container of water so that you can quickly extinguish its edges and not accidentally burn most of the sheet.
Now that the paper is ready, you can start writing the letter itself. Of course, it is best to use black ink and pen for this, since in this case the text will look more ancient and authentic. However, it is quite possible to use a fountain pen or even a regular black gel pen.
To make the text of the letter look ancient, it is worth using rounded fonts characteristic of past centuries with many bends and curls. Of course, not everyone knows the art of calligraphy, so you can first print the text on a printer and only then transfer it to a prepared aged sheet of paper. In this case, the letters will turn out perfectly smooth and beautiful, and the text itself will be in harmony with the paper in style.
After the text has been written and the ink has dried, you can carefully roll the paper into a tube and tie it with ribbon. Instead of ribbon, you can also use ordinary coarse twine - this will give the old message some simplicity and at the same time will not spoil its appearance.
